Daily Archive

Everything I ever needed to know I learned from ‘Atlas Shrugged’ (Part 1)

First Notes:

– Bought this book at a charity book sale for a dollar
– Recommended by many – including my Pastor (sort of).
– This is just from the first three hundred pages
– Notable about this list – I have chosen only passages that I think the author disagrees with. More than other authors I’ve read, Mrs. Rand writes many foolish characters who speak aphoristic statements that she (Mrs. Rand) obviously thinks are rediculous.

A country is its neighbors keeper. *** Public opinion can mean a lot. *** Disunity seems to be the cause of all social problems. *** The only justification of private property is public service. *** People who are afraid to sacrifice somebody have no business talking about a common purpose. *** Men have to get together *** Virtue is the price of admission to heaven. *** Social reforms are slow – it is advisable to be patient and cautious. *** Reason is the most naïve of all superstitions. *** The duty of thinkers is not to explain, but to demonstrate that nothing can be explained. *** The literature of the past was a shallow fraud. *** Only those whose motive is not moneymaking should be allowed to write. *** Plot is a primitive vulgarity in literature. *** Property rights are a superstition *** Machines have destroyed man’s humanity, taken him away from the soil, robbed him of his natural arts, killed his soul and turned him into an insensitive robot. *** Intellectual pursuits are not learned in the marketplace. *** It is only in the realm of pure science that truth is an absolute criterion. When we deal with applied science, with technology-we deal with people. And when we deal with people, considerations other than truth enter the question. *** If a man deserves a job there’s not virtue in giving it to him. Virtue is the giving of the undeserved. *** Real devotion consists of being willing to lie, cheat and fake in order to make another person happy – to create for him the reality he wants, if he doesn’t like the one that exists. *** To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She’s earned it, it’s a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake – and that is real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self–esteem. *** Love, that is the key to everything. If men learned to love one another, it would solve all their problems.